Thoughts, news and views on politics, economics, business and development in Southeast Asia

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Does political censorship work in Singapore?

The above video of a speech by Lim Hock Siew, who was detained by the Singapore government without charge or trial for 19 years and 8 months, has been banned by Singapore's censors.

It is a criminal offence to possess or distribute the video in Singapore and anyone doing so could face two years in prison and a fine of up to S$10,000.

The prohibition of the video, which was prodcued by film-maker Martyn See, is merely the latest in a long list of acts of political repression by the government.

Both Martyn See and Siew Kum Hong, a lawyer and former nominated MP, have noted that the ban has generated extra publicity for the video and led to an increase in the number of people who have watched it online.

Although the film-maker has complied with the Singapore government's demand that the film be taken down from YouTube, it has now gone viral and is available on several other sites (such as the one above).

At first sight, then, it appears as if this latest act of political censorship is wholly counter-productive.

However, while each act of political suppression by the Singapore government seems mindless when viewed in isolation (from suing the International Herald Tribune to arresting activists for handing out leaflets), the medium-term effect of this constant, drip-drip of repression is to suggest that political activists are dangerous and to warn right-thinking Singaporeans against engaging in any independent political activities.

I would urge anyone interested in politics or human rights to watch the 79-year-old Lim speak about his Kakfa-esque detention.

He relates how, at one stage during his detention from 1963 to 1982, he was put before an advisory board of judges and presented with charge sheets that included a number of blank spaces.

He asked one of the three judges why some of the charges were blanked out and the judge told him that these were charges that were so sensitive they could be shown only to the advisory board and not to the detainee.

The government did not try to stop Lim making his speech, which he did openly at a book launch in Singapore last year, but feel that a straight-up recording of his comments is "against the public interest" because it "gives a distorted and misleading portrayal of Dr Lim’s arrests and detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in 1963".